We’re speaking to Ali whose full name we have withheld to protect his identity; Ali is a refugee from Bahrain. He escaped the brutal crackdown in Manama (Bahrain) two weeks ago that is sponsored by Gulf oil monarchies. Ali had been sleep deprived for weeks on end as Saudi Arabian forces tortured him and his family.

Ali retold refugee counsellors, who belong to Amnesty international, how the Saudi troops were ordered to leave the room and the Bahraini Prince Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa entered the room to torture him personally.

“It was the cruellest ordeal I have ever imagined possible and I passed out multiple times only for Khalifa, god damn his soul, to beat me back into consciousness.”

We could hardly keep in our tears while Ali told us his miraculous escape. In his own words that were spoken to us in perfect English: “A miracle befell me as Khalifa assumed I was dead, giving me a chance to crawl away into a nearby infirmary. There, a family friend facilitated my escape from the country.”

Ali’s story is only one of thousands; he recalled how a family friend, Sheikh Ali Salman, was shot in the back with rubber bullets at close range by regime forces.

Bahrain and the disputed Saudi area of Qatif, once a part of Bahrain, have been undergoing a “silent crackdown” as the world’s attention is turned away from the Gulf monarchies, who have been historically repressive and devoid of any democratic system. Stories out of Qatif have been far and few [between], mainly because of the difficulty of accessing any wounded activists or any of their family members due to Saudi security forces. We managed to smuggle a satellite phone to an activist connected to the cleric Nimer al Nimer. Sheikh Nimer had been shot and arrested by Saudi forces following a peaceful protest.

“He is in bad shape”, the activist who prefers to go by M, told us. M has been collecting evidence of the house of Saud’s brutality that he hopes will eventually be passed on to the international criminal court (ICC). “The world is silent as our blood flows like a river”, he told us with an unforgettably tense expression. His wife had been kidnapped a few days earlier, he suspects, as a reprisal for his activism. M fears that she is “being raped in a gulag as we speak”, a pattern followed by the Kingdom in order to rein in its people.

We have gathered as much information as is safe to publish at this time and it will appear in our monthly report. Activists in the Gulf region should rest assured that Amnesty International will not turn its back on their suffering and will intensify its coverage, as well as utilizing its vast networking with other NGOs and bodies such as the UNHRC, to bring them justice.